Faith Without Works

Some tymes the idea of doing laundry is daunting to me.  It seems ridiculous to be overwhelmed by such a simple task, especially in this day and age when all you really have to do is push a bunch of buttons and the machines do most of the work.  And really, it’s not the work that besets me, but rather the commitment that the work requires. It seems that any tyme there are steps A through Z with any kind of pause or layover between them I tend not to be efficient at the task.  Why you wonder? Well, it’s because I am easily…

Hey, what’s that over there?

Oh good, I’ve always wanted to see that movie! 

Sure, I can come help you move that cabinet.

Dinner sounds great!  See you at 7:00. –

What? Oh yeah, I am easily distracted!

From the gathering, loading, washing, drying, folding to the putting away, laundry is a process and a commitment.  Now, when I put my mind to it, I’m usually pretty good at the first few stages, but my tenacity for the task tends to diminish when it comes to the later phases.  For example, the other week I got to the drying portion of the task, perhaps not as quickly as I could have, what with the whole getting distracted thing, but I digress.  Most of the items in the load were small so I put them in the dryer, but there was one large towel that I decided to hang outside on the clothes line.  Insert distractions here! 

Eventually, I removed the laundry from the dryer and eventually I got it folded and put away, but I forgot about the towel out on the clothes line.  Oh, there were tymes I saw it hanging out there and thought, “I really need to go get that towel”, but I was busy at that moment and decided I would remember to do it later.  Days went by, it was later, but still the towel hung out on the line.  By this tyme it had seen its share of the elements and I knew that I would have to rewash it, so, why not leave it out there until I was ready to do a load of towels and such.

Finally, one day, more than a week later, I looked out and saw that towel still hanging out on the line and I decided that it was tyme to act. I went out to retrieve it, but when I walked up to it, I was shocked by what I saw. Raging rain, scorching sunshine and whipping wind had all been a part of the towel’s online experience and the results were not good.  The towel was greatly faded from its original, vibrant color and it was beginning to tatter at the edges.  It looked nothing like the towel I hung up more than a week before.

As I walked in the house, faded and tatter towel in hand, I thought about how that towel represents faith.  Faith is a wonderful thing to have, but much like laundry, it’s a process that requires commitment.  You can’t just have faith, you have to work at your faith.  If you say you have faith but you don’t do anything with it, it will fade and start to fall apart just like the towel on the clothes line.  You have to take care of your faith, work with it and put it into action.

James said in chapter 2 of his book that “faith without works is dead”.  Simply having faith does nothing. You can say you have faith, but how would anyone know it’s true?  Let’s face it, the world is filled with Doubting Thomas’s who only believe something when it is shown to them.  Therefore the only way to illustrate your faith is to put it into action.  While God knows if you have faith, He expects us to show it to others through an array of opportunities.  Everything from how we react to a difficult tyme in life to how we treat other people are ways to put our faith to work. 

So let’s not let our faith be the towel on the clothesline. Let’s take it down and use it so it doesn’t and so we don’t fade and fall apart under the rough elements of life in this world.